


When the Days Feel Long

by wowbright



Series: Glee Reaction Fic to s06e07 "Transitioning" [6]
Category: Glee
Genre: Comfort, Episode: s06e07 Transitioning, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 17:13:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3389732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wowbright/pseuds/wowbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel’s curious about what Blaine wanted to ask her. So she reaches out to him. A Rachel-Blaine friendship fic for @redheadgleek. Reaction to 6.07 “Transitioning.” Also on <a href="http://wowbright.tumblr.com/post/111423380735/fic-when-the-days-feel-long">tumblr</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Days Feel Long

Rachel’s mind doesn’t have any room for wandering the evening of her double date with Kurt. She’s overwhelmed by the weirdness of meeting Kurt’s new beau and the excitement of watching Unique and her choir put Vocal Adrenaline to shame. And then there’s the afterward, when she goes back to Sam’s place, and that – well, a woman is entitled to keep some things to herself.

But Rachel’s mind does start to wander the next morning, after Sam leaves for a football game and she goes back to her dad’s new home. (Not her home, no. It’s a stopping place, a temporary haven, no matter how welcome she’ll always be there.)

She thinks about Unique, whose name she’s finally learned, and wishes she hadgotten to know some of the other new New Directions a little better. Maybe this semester is her chance. She runs through moments from the Final Farewell to Rachel’s Childhood Home party: Kitty and Spencer fighting over a pink tutu, Madison and Mason more wild and shimmery out of uniform then she might have expected, Jane and Roderick flirting for the camera (well, Rachel _thinks_ they were flirting, although at other times she’s gotten a distinctly gay vibe off of Jane, so who knows?)

She remembers her friends, too: surrounding her, supporting her, making it easier to let go.

Rachel gets out the photo album they helped her put together from her old wall. There’s Mercedes: once her arch rival, now someone who’ll travel across the country to make sure that Rachel doesn’t give up on her dreams.

And Kurt – brought together by a love for Finn, held together now by a different kind of love that’s just as strong.

And there she is with Blaine, opening night of _West Side Story_ – he was such a good Tony, so handsome and unafraid of love. He made it easy to be Maria and to believe that she would give anything to be with him, that she couldn’t live without him. She remembers saying to Kurt one night after rehearsal, “Kurt, you’re so lucky. If I weren’t already so in love with Finn, I might forget myself and develop a little crush on my leading man. The way he looks at me when he’s being Tony – it’s like I’m the most important person in the world. But Blaine looks at _you_ like that all the time, and it’s real.”

She can picture that look on Blaine’s face like it was yesterday – and then she realizes it _was_ yesterday: Blaine standing next to the grand piano in the choir room, his eyes filled with as much devotion to Kurt as ever.

But there was something else there, too. Confusion, maybe, or regret. She’s not exactly sure what it was, but it wasn’t good.

* * *

Blaine isn’t going to let himself fall into a pit of despair. He’s going to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward. Maybe he can’t have Kurt, but there are other things he loves that he _can_ have – music, the joy of helping his friends, the challenge of teaching. In a few weeks, he’ll be going to that comic book convention with Sam. He needs to plan a costume for that, which give him plenty of distraction in the meantime. And tomorrow he’s going to the unisex spa with his mom for body waxing and facials.

Yes, he’d rather be doing it all with Kurt by his side. But he doesn’t _need_ Kurt or any romantic partner to have a happy and fulfilled life.

So even though he’s tempted to spend all morning in his childhood bedroom listening to “Candles” on repeat, Blaine is in his parent’s kitchen instead, trying out a new cupcake recipe.

He’s just popped them in the oven when his phone buzzes.

> **Rachel:** I was just thinking about you. Did you remember what you wanted to ask me yesterday? You seemed a little off.

Blaine stares at the phone. He could stack lie upon lie by making something up, telling her he was trying to figure out a mashup of “I Will Survive” and “Do Me Baby” and needed another voice to figure out if it might work.

But hiding his troubles from the people close to him isn’t always the best strategy. He’s been talking about that with his therapist in regard to his breakup with Kurt for months. With Dave, hiding wasn’t even effective – Dave saw right through everything.

On the other hand, Rachel is Kurt’s best friend, and Blaine doesn’t want her to be the one to tell Kurt how Blaine feels about him. When the right time comes, Blaine's going to be the one to say it – not anyone else.

Still, Blaine can tell Rachel part of the truth.

> **Blaine:** I didn’t have a question for you. I made that up because I didn’t want to make a scene when you were all in the middle of leaving for your date.  
>  **Blaine:** Dave and I broke up.

* * *

Rachel’s first instinct is to jump up and down in delight and call Kurt with the good news. Then she realizes that Blaine may have said that in confidence, the way she told Kurt a few weeks ago something was going on between her and Sam – because she wanted his support, not because she wanted him to broadcast it to every single one of their friends.

Rachel’s second instinct is to apologize. The breakup must be her fault; she never was very nice or welcoming to Dave, refused to look him in the eye and tended to change the topic of conversation whenever Blaine mentioned him. It was silly and immature, really – beneath the dignity of a grown woman. After all, the first thing Dave did when Blaine reintroduced them was tell her he’d been waiting forever to personally apologize for every slushie he’d ever thrown at her. He asked her if he’d ruined any of her clothes, and told her he would be willing to get her replacements if she wanted them – then apologized again for offering what was probably too little, too late. He even said he was sorry her show got canceled, because he’d seen the first episode and thought it had potential.

Rachel should have made more of an effort to get to know Dave, to invite him with her and Blaine on outings to Between the Sheets and the Lima Bean. It hadn’t even occurred to her to invite Blaine and Dave on a double date with her and Sam, and Blaine was Sam’s best friend.

She starts to text an apology **:** _Oh Blaine, it’s all my fault, isn’t it? I should have been more supportive._ But before she hits send, something she once overheard a glee kid whisper pops into her head: “Ms. Berry always makes everything about her.”

Perhaps Rachel is doing that here, too. Maybe Blaine and Dave’s breakup has nothing to do with her.

Rachel’s third instinct – which makes it hardly an instinct at all, and more a sign of maturity – is to think about what Blaine would do for her in the same situation. That answer comes to her easily. It’s what he and all her friends and the whole glee club did for her this past week: help him through the transition.

> **Rachel:** I’m here for you. Do you want to talk? I could come over if you want.
> 
> **Blaine:** That would be great. I’m holding together but I could use a friend. I’m at my parents.
> 
> **Rachel:** I’ll be there in about half an hour. See you soon!

* * *

Rachel shows up at Blaine's with a bag of white cheddar popcorn, seven bottles of nail polish, and a stack of _Playbill_ magazines. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted a heart-to-heart or a distraction, so I came prepared for both.” She sets everything out in a neat row on the kitchen table and they dive into the popcorn while waiting for the cupcakes to cool.

“I could probably use a little of each,” Blaine says, grabbing the issue with Neil Patrick Harris on the cover.

“Have you two been having trouble for a while?” Rachel says. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice earlier. I could have been more supportive.”

Blaine looks up from his magazine. “It’s okay. I don’t know that we were having trouble, really. We were getting along fine. It’s just –” he shrugs. “He was tired of being my rebound. I can’t really blame him.”

Rachel looks down at her hands. She folds them together, unfolds them, then folds them again, as if they’re not fitting together quite right. “I did that to Brody. It wasn’t very nice.”

“Do you miss him?”

She shakes her head. “He wasn’t a great catch, and he was dishonest. But I still feel bad sometimes about the way I treated him. I never really had any intention of staying with him. I just wanted someone to distract me and make me feel grown-up. It wasn’t a fair position to put him in.”

“Yeah. I’ve been feeling guilty, too.” Blaine sets the _Playbill_ back in the center of the table. They’re getting close to the real issue, and he’s not sure how he feels about that. He pushes back his chair and says, “I think the cupcakes are ready to be frosted. Shall we?”

Rachel beams and claps her hands together. “I hope you have red food coloring so we can ice them _pink_.”

* * *

“Was Dave mad?” Rachel says, leaning against the counter and peering at the side of Blaine’s face. Blaine has just dumped all the cake frosting equipment in the sink for a good soak. He’s watching the water, his hands resting on the edge of the counter.

Blaine doesn’t look up. “No. Not at all. He understood what was going on with me better than I did. I think he saw the end coming a long time ago.” The water is turning a gauzy, bubblegum rose as bits of frosting slough off the utensils and dissolve.

 _What **was** going on?_ Rachel wants to ask, but she doesn’t have to. She saw the way Blaine was looking at Kurt in the choir room yesterday. She saw them at her party, and at all the glee rehearsals where they prepared for the party, and at Invitationals before that. It wouldn’t be fair to make Blaine say how he feels, when he probably hasn’t even told Kurt yet. She hated it after Finn died and people wanted her to talk about how she felt. Talking about the most intimate parts of love – that’s for the two people who share it. She didn’t need to tell everyone about her feelings. She needed to tell Finn, and Finn alone.

But she didn’t mind when people told her what they saw in Finn, or what they saw in her relationship with him. That made her feel closer to him. Still does.

She puts a hand on Blaine’s arm. “Kurt loves you,” she says. “I’m pretty sure he always will.”

Blaine turns to face her. There’s a small, sad smile on his face. He blinks slowly, as if clearing away tears he doesn’t want to cry.  “Thanks,” he says. “I hope so.”

* * *

They don’t talk about Blaine and Dave’s breakup anymore, or about Kurt. They take turns polishing each other’s toenails and reading out listings from the current issue of _Playbill_. They eat too many cupcakes as they chat about returning to New York and their dreams.

“You have it in you to be a star,” Rachel says. The sugar makes her feel light and effusive. She admires Blaine even more than she did when she walked through his front door earlier today.

“Thanks,” Blaine says. His smile lights the corners of his eyes. “I don’t know if I want to. But I do know I want to stay in the arts. I don’t know if that’s as a performer or a teacher or something else. I just know I like the way that people light up when they hear music. I want to bring that to them. I like giving people a reason to be happy.”

Rachel wipes the frosting off her fingers and squeezes Blaine’s hand. “You’re already doing that,” she says. “You give me lots of reasons to be happy, Blaine Anderson.”

He turns his hand in hers and squeezes back. “You give me lots of reasons, too.”


End file.
